Easter Ann Peters' Operation Cool

By Jody Lamb

Twelve-year-old Easter Ann Peters has a plan to make seventh grade awesome: Operation Cool. She's determined to erase years of being known as the quiet, straight-A student who can't think of a decent comeback to a bully she calls Horse Girl. When the confident new girl, Wreni, becomes her long-needed best friend, Easter lets her personal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jody Lamb Communications, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780999201602

Book preview

• • • ONE

Okay, seventh grade. Bring it. I’m ready.

Grandma Dottie once told me that sometimes you have to pretend you have a ton of confidence until it’s there on its own.

I stand near the parking lot where parents and buses unload kids to wait for the first bell.

This year’s going to be a good one. The kind that I need.

Seventh grade’s important. Positively. It’s the year we officially become teenagers. Coolness at this point can totally wipe out my kindergarten through sixth grade shyness and predictable dorkiness.

I have Operation Cool, my official plan to make seventh grade awesome. It’s in a notebook—official and grownup, yet prettified with a purple squiggle under the title on the cover. For good luck, it’s stuffed in my backpack between folders. I go over it in my head for the hundredth time:

Step One: Make a good friend. She doesn’t have to be a best friend, just a good friend to do stuff with outside of school.

Step Two: Stop clamming up and turning into a statue around boys, especially Tommy Hansen.

Step Three: Have a cool thing I’m known for. Everyone has a thing they’re good at, like ballet or basketball or guitar. So far, I’m only good at school. I’ll keep getting good grades, but not mark the bar so high that it bugs people.

Step Four: Stand up to Horse Girl, the world’s jerkiest seventh grader, known outside of my brain as Erica Morski, the most popular girl at Lake of Eileen Middle School.

It’ll work. It’s got to. Plus, no more braces will take my coolness level up a notch automatically.

In the parking lot, best friends in clusters laugh over photos on their cell phones. I have one from the Stone Age. No camera. No text. No web. Just a phone, but I’m happy to have that, at least.

The predator-net, as Dad calls it, is more dangerous for a kid than walking alone at night in a city alley, according to Dad. I’d love to have Internet access on my cell, though. I could keep in touch better with Stephanie, my friend who moved far away two years ago, and my Grandma Dottie.

I tug on my shirt to smooth out the wrinkles. Oh no! There’s a big hole on the side?! You can see my skin through it! Bright pale stands out like the neon Mega Millions sign that hangs in the Lake of Eileen Market window in my town.

It’s fine. It’s not like I’m raggedy. Just a little hole. On the first day. It’s fine! Really!

My whole class is arranged by clique until Horse Girl breaks away from her group, struts up and starts in on me.

Ha, Easter, where’d you get that shirt? she asks with her ginormous smile that makes her eyes shrivel to raisins. Your grandma’s closet? Or the Salvation Army, as usual? Or maybe even their dumpster?

One hour ago, these jeans and this stop-sign red short-sleeve shirt with a drawing of two brightly colored lovebirds together on a tree branch seemed so safe from Horse Girl’s snarkiness. That funny-feeling thing makes its way from my stomach, heads up and lands, lump form, in my throat. It’s one-hundred percent absolutely worse than the moment before the nurse gives you a shot. Butterflies have a dance party inside of me.

Get a grip.

Heat hits my cheeks at a hundred miles per hour and I don’t know what to do but drop my backpack and pretend to look for something in the front pocket. I find nothing but a pink eraser. Great. Remind them that you’re Super Geek! Smart! I stand and thumb the eraser in my hand. Muffled whispers followed by giggles make me stare at the tiles.

Say something!

Horse Girl and her killer sense of humor.

Before my face melts, a girl behind me clears her throat.

Oh, I really like her outfit, she says.

I twirl on my ballet flats. The girl looks a lot older than me, taller and curvier, with long, smooth, straight brown hair. Totally the kind you see in a shampoo commercial. She has silvery eye shadow, thin pink lips and a zit-free face. What’s most shocking is that she’s wearing a turquoise sundress with giant white flowers, like the kind I’ve seen in books about the 1960s. One side is sleeveless and the other has a super poofy, flowy three quarter-length sleeve. It has a round scoop neck and a skinny gold belt. Glamour! In Lake of Eileen!

In big cities like Chicago, people are into unique clothing, the girl says, like ‘I’m right and you know it.’

A circle of people forms around us. The silence roars.

Horse Girl’s face is all scrunched up and constipated-ish. She’s sizing up the new girl, studying every inch of her. Friend or competition? Typical.

Everyday store stuff is so… The girl flicks her nose, like she might be allergic to this place, and leans her body on her right hip. …boring. A little outside the box is awesome, you know?

Whoa! What just happened?

Horse Girl’s mouth falls a bit and her eyes move half a centimeter per hour from the new girl’s shoes up to her face and back down again.

The girl scans the people around, all casual, like what she said was no big deal. It’s so un-noisy at this moment, I hear her pencils and pens bumping each other when she looks for something in the side pocket of her purse.

Standing up to a snooty-pants face with snooty pants-ness! That’s the kind of awesome-ness you appreciate in a person.

But why did she do that? She’s a new girl! Isn’t that sort of a rule when you’re new, you don’t stand up to people? Was she just showing Horse Girl she’s not going to be one of her groupies? Like, ‘Missy, looky here, I’m an individual.’

We’re all statues, standing there, until Horse Girl’s face morphs into phony, super-friendly mode and she takes a step closer. Hiii! Are you new?

Yep, just moved here from Chicago, the girl says. My dad got transferred to an office a ways away from here. She points left, catches herself, shakes her head and points behind her with the other hand that crinkles a blueberry PopTart package. This place is super tiny compared to where I come from, so this is kind of a big— She raises arms up, wide like she’s holding a hoola hoop in the air —change for me. She grins, wide enough to show her perfect teeth. My parents were tired of the crowded city life.

What’s Shacaaago like? says a kid with a thick Michigan accent like he’s never been out of Lake of Eileen.

But Horse Girl’s got questions so he’ll have to wait. What grade are you in? she interrupts.

Seventh.

Me, too!

Oh yeah? The new girl nods. I’m Wreni Hammer.

Totally a movie star name.

The circle grows bored and walks away as though nothing has just happened, so Wreni and Horse Girl start walking, too. Horse Girl’s always a fast walker, and they pass me right away.

Wreni tears open the PopTart foil and offers Horse Girl half of it. Crumbs settle on the pavement to make a yummy breakfast for some lucky ants. Horse Girl shakes her head and grins.

Great, she just found another member of her adoring crew. They’re practically best friends already. There goes that. A chance at Step One shot down before we even walk through the doors.

I’m trailing behind all of the seventh graders when Wreni stops near the door and glances behind her. Her gold sandals clickety clack all the way back to me. Horse Girl glares and stands there watching—long enough to make me nervous about what she’s going to do.

Wow, those are so great, Wreni says and points. We stare at my flats—black and sprinkled with tiny red roses.

Oh, thanks. My reply comes out all dry and froggy, which makes her giggle. I do, too.

Come on. Say, ‘Hi, I’m Easter.’ The words swirl in my head but never make it down to my throat. I stare down at my shoes.

Mmm hmm, Wreni finally says to break the awkward moment, and looks away.

The line inches forward and I breathe, but I can’t stop wondering about what all of this means. What’s the deal with Wreni Hammer, and why would she stick up for me?

Mrs. Martin, our teacher, has gray hair, gray skin, a bottom that weighs down her body, a round face and two chins. She can’t pull off a full-fledged walk, but instead shuffles with her bad hip. Today she’s wearing a red shirt tucked into a wrinkly black skirt with rulers and red apples all over it.

Hello, Miss Peters.

Her manly greeting reminds me about how on the last day of sixth grade, she came in to meet everyone, walked up to me and said that she was excited to have suuuch a diligent student in her class this year. Thanks, Mrs. Martin. Way to start things off for me.

Hi, Mrs. Martin. I smile a polite one.

Have a nice summer? She pats me on the head like I do when I greet my dog, Amigo, just to make it absolutely clear that I am her class pet.

Sometimes I think things would be easier if I just decided to become a bad kid.

Yes, I did, thanks, I say. Please, please don’t embarrass me anymore.

Mrs. Martin points behind me. I don’t recognize your face, so you must be Wreni.

Hi! Wreni waves and takes two steps forward.

Well, welcome!

Thank you. She mini bows with her head.

The first thing I notice when we make it to the classroom is that Mrs. Martin’s skirt is made of the same fabric that covers the bulletin board. Maybe that’s super cool in the teacher world.

Rustling stops in the classroom when Wreni enters behind me. We’re the last of the seventh graders. It’s so quiet, in fact, that I avoid swallowing on account of having a desert-y mouth and not wanting to let out one of those weird nervous swallow sounds.

Everyone scatters to fill the seats, minus the front row, of course. That’s reserved for the class pets.

Class, this is Wreni Hammer. Mrs. Martin motions us to follow her to the front of the room. She is new. Be niiice. She bugs out her eyes like we’re third graders. She’s from the big city with a lot of wind and now she’s here in a little town with a big lake! Mrs. Martin chuckles so hard, her belly shakes. I doubt she’ll ever realize her jokes are only hilarious to her. She points to the only remaining non-front row desk way on the other side of the room and asks Wreni to settle there.

Wreni nods and scans the room of eyeballs. Hi, she says, all casual like she’s known us forever. Then she clickety clacks to the chair, smoothes her dress and sits.

She doesn’t seem nervous at all!

I’m headed to the front row when Mrs. Martin says, So that Wreni can get to know us faster, we’re all going to introduce ourselves. Easter, since you’re standing, how about you go first? Say your name and one interesting thing about you.

Thirty pairs of eyes stare.

Um, hi. I shoot my right arm up in an awkward salute/wave. Uh, I’m Easter and… Think. Um, one interesting thing about me is, uh, uh, I guess I’d say…

Horse Girl giggles.

Well, I have a cat, a dog and a goldfish. Pathetic!

I claim the front row seat that’s four rows away from Wreni and two seats ahead of Horse Girl. How could I blank out like that?

My heart sways down to my belly like a feather from a bird’s nest to the grass.

Coolness is not going to come easy.

Tommy Hansen volunteers to go next.

He shares seven funny ‘I’m awesome-but-I-really-don’t-know-it’ things about himself. Not that it even matters what he says anyway. Like even ‘My doo doo stinks big time,’ would be totally amazing, too.

What’s most fascinating about Tommy Hansen is the way he instantly draws the attention of everyone in the room like bugs to the lamp outside. Without trying. It’s because when you’re near him, you feel like you’re hanging with a celebrity. He is stunningly movie star handsome, on a Lake of Eileen scale at least. It’s the wavy brown hair and how he makes the other guys look so young with his muscle-y arms and the fact that he’s high-schooler tall. That also makes him super great at sports. That’s his thing.

On his way back to his seat, Tommy picks up a pencil from the floor and holds it out to me.

Oh um trips out. For goodness’ sake.

Thanks, that’s mine, the kid to my right says and snatches it, but Tommy smirks AT ME. Like he’s saying, ‘Hi.’

I’m sure of this at first, but then my brain takes over. No, that can’t be right. He never even looks at me for longer than a millisecond. Someone behind me is smiling back, I bet. DO NOT TURN AROUND. They’ll see me turn, and it’ll be all awkward. They’ll know I thought he was smiling at me.

After everyone introduces themselves, all relaxed with extraordinarily interesting things to say, Mrs. Martin tells us to chat about summer and stuff with a neighbor while she gets a presentation up and running.

Horse Girl’s the loudest, so a third of us hear all about her fabulous summer, complete with oh-so-hilarious imitations of her crazy old-lady neighbor. Of course, she also makes time for stories about the cute high school boy she worked with at her grandpa’s hardware store who told her she’s so cute.

And did Horse Girl stuff her bra or did it actually double in size over the summer? Her hair is tousled but pony-tailed up so it’s still quite horse-butt like. Her hair has been a blend of blond and brown highlights for so long now no one remembers what color actually grows out of her head. Her eyebrows, which are blondish brown, are thinner and arched now. This actually makes her look more like a horse, at least in my mind. You should see the way she cackles super loud and hyena style, with tall, bright pink gums. No one teases her about it, though. Prettiness + the ability to come up with